Phill Jupitus: ‘My real dad, Bob, is the one that did the work – the one who raised me – and he’s the one I love.’ Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

I was what I suppose in the parlance was referred to as a 60s love child. My mum got pregnant with me in 1961 and I was born in June 1962. I’m the result of a very brief relationship. I’ve rarely spoken about it with my mother though. It’s one of those things you go to talk about and it’s just never really the right moment. There was a time when I could have gone all guns blazing, but my mum has retired. She’s 74. I went alone on holiday with her last year, which I think was the first time my mum and I have had any time alone since my brother was born, and it was my intention to try to broach it at some point, but we were having such a nice time I thought, “Well, why sour it?”

It would have been nice to meet my birth father, although I don’t know if nice is the right word. It might have been. Through some fairly convoluted means, I discovered that he died in 1985. I think he had three daughters and a son when he got my mum pregnant. I know the area he’s from and the weird thing is that, as a touring comedian, it’s a place I’ve been to, so it’s always a very odd experience walking around the shopping centre looking for my own eyes looking back at me.

“What’s it like not knowing your real dad?” people ask me, but I do know my real dad. My real dad, Bob, is the one that did the work – the one who raised me – and he’s the one I love. He has been a part of my life since I was born, as he was a really close friend of my mum. He took us on when I was five, so he’s my dad. The one I don’t know is the sperm guy.

Going to school amplified the discord of my unconventional family upbringing. Most children know that at the core of their being they are the biological spore of their parents, whereas my brother was from a different dad and then my sister was from another dad again. The three of us had got this slightly odd dynamic going on. Not that that has in any way emotionally impaired us. We were and still are very tight and very close to each other, but what it does create at the core of your being is a curiosity, an unanswered question that you’re not even sure it would be good to answer.

I used to call my mum Dot, which my mates at school found incredibly weird. I do call her Mother now. I’ve reclaimed my proper role. By the time my sister, Bob’s daughter, came along in 1978, we were in leafy suburban Essex. Mum used to let me and my brother out, because we lived next door to a park. She didn’t give us a time to come back or anything. She went, “I’ll whistle you back.” She has this phenomenal whistle you could hear from two miles away, so we would be out and she’d call us back like a dog. Me and my brother, whatever we were doing, would go, “All right, we gotta go now. Bye.” And people would go, “What?” And we’d go, “Mum just whistled.”

Compared with my biological father I’m already ahead on points. I’m around. My father wasn’t. You’d have to ask my kids what sort of dad I am, but my view is that your job as a parent is not to be a tutor. It is not moral compass. It’s not guardian. At the end of the day, your job as a parent is a safety net. You’re there to be there when they fall, and other than that, it’s your best guess. My kids are both at university. I didn’t go, so I’ve done really well. But I think it’s down to their mother to be honest. I’ve just been around for shits and giggles.

• Phill Jupitus is appearing in the touring production of The Producers, from 14 March to 16 May. For tickets and more information, see atgtickets.com

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